“As you have my book, look on page 31 and it will give the information you require!”
Dear Mr. Newall,
Indeed it does. But page 31 and those following also raise several questions, a few of which you hopefully will address in this forum. Can give any details about the "12-pounder gun forward" you mentioned? The Halifax photograph you have captioned as November 1916, which identifies this "gun mount", shows nothing more than her boom crutch. And literally right behind that is the cover for the companionway leading up to the forecastle steerage areas. I do not understand how a gun could be mounted in that location. What would this “12-pounder” have been fixed to? Photographs and plans appear to indicate that the bow guns installed in 1918 were mounted to existing dedicated platforms. Additionally, her curved bow bulwarks and her bow railings remain intact in your 1916 Halifax photograph. This is interesting when one compares it with the photograph on top of page 33. That top image, which you have captioned as 1915, shows her bulwarks cut straight down and her bow railings removed — something done much later and a visual clue often used to assist in assigning dates to these wartime images.
I do not understand the Mauretania’s dazzle chronology as you have written it. You discuss a harlequin dazzle pattern in 1915. But mustn’t the IWM photograph on top of page 33, which you identified as Moudros 1915, be from 1919? Again, note her bow bulwarks have been cut straight down and her bow railings removed (as well as her bow guns). These alterations to the bow were made in 1918 when she was finally armed with her intended four 6-inch B.L. bow guns; her bulwarks were cutstraight down and her fixed railings back to the bridge were removed and replaced with knotted rope. Additionally, would her stern have been built up as shown in your page 33 top illustration captioned 1915 if actually 1915 - before her hospital service? The well known IWM image of her in being coaled in post September 1915 hospital guise, which is in your book on page 30, shows her with her original, gracefully curved bulwarks intact and without the later stern additions as does the hospital photograph on your page 32. Images of her at Halifax in 1916 and laid up in 1917 also show the original bulwarks, rails and do not depict the later stern additions. For these reasons, the photograph on top of page 33 cannot be from 1915.
In any event, didn’t Norman Wilkinson first develop the idea of dazzle in May 1917? Wasn’t the first ship to be painted into a "trial" Wilkinson dazzle pattern the S.S. Industry, whose scheme was not even applied until 1917? How could the Mauretania come to bear a harlequin dazzle scheme the year the Lusitania was lost, as you’ve written, when vessels were still in black or grey (as shown in the top photograph on page 30) and the full-blown (last) dazzle scheme depicted in the top illustration on page 33, captioned 1915, had yet to be conceived?
And speaking of the 1918 harlequin scheme as you described it, what is your source for the possible use of reds, blues and yellows? Other than one artistically ambitious, but errant, apparently post-war colored Cunard poster or advert (originally a sepia Signal Corps photograph), I am unaware of any reds or other strong colors used on the Mauretania. It is my understanding, from looking at the original Wilkinson design for her longest lasting dazzle scheme and several sample color charts (all pastels for lack of a better word), that Mauretania’s basic colors were two shades of blue and a gray. A port side observational sketch of one of her two earlier schemes, drawn from one-half mile away in clear conditions at 10:20 am one March morning in 1918, resides in the National Archives and shows her to be in blues, grays, a darker color and possibly lime green at the stern (which may or may not have been the case). This earlier scheme, of which there are published photographs, is not illustrated or discussed in your book despite your past claim of showing all her schemes. There is also an ONI starboard rendering of this same earlier scheme (which differs on the port design, just as the harlequin pattern differed between port and starboard) in the National Archives documenting the same colors of blue and gray with lime green. The original Wilkinson designs for the last scheme, which specifies just two blues and a gray, depicts both port and starboard patterns. The photo at the bottom of page 33 is captioned as yet another, later scheme from 1918 (using roughly the same words as in the text - “…the third was a more traditional, stripy pattern.”, page 31). But is this not the port version of the same scheme shown in the 1919 starboard photograph on the top of page 33, which you have captioned as Moudros 1915? From the photographic record, you have shown only two different schemes.
You also show the painting by Burnett Poole C. 1919 on page 30, captioned as her original dazzle scheme, which you've stated was applied in 1915. How can this be when the painting clearly shows her rust-stained and armed at the bow with four B.L. guns not added until 1918 as stated in your text? Her "original" or earlier 1918 schemes are quite different in design as can be observed in the renderings described above in the National Archives and the scheme shown on page 33 middle. This same scheme in the Poole canvas is shown again in your photograph on page 35 and there identified by association as December 1918; this scheme was clearly her last as she bore two earlier schemes (one of which you have shown middle right page 33 and the scheme described in the March 1918 observational rendering mentioned above which you did not show).
The photo on page 33 - left middle — is captioned as armed, but where she is armed in that image? Her bow guns have been removed and the wear to her paintwork also indicate a date after she was disarmed. This same wear can be seen in Signal Corps photographs of her being disarmed at the bow. The middle right photograph on page 33 — it is one of the two early schemes mentioned above - could you place a date and cite a source for the image as it is without caption and uncredited?
I look forward to reading your response. I’d like very much to understand your chronology as presented.
Best wishes,
Eric Longo
